We train in the yard for hours, working on just my basic swing. Araña tries to guide me in using a good amount of power and speed, while not committing too much weight to the movement, and being able to withdraw quickly to move into my next attack. The constant repetition tires me out swiftly, but Araña won’t let up until Nina calls us in for dinner. I sheathe my sword and bring it inside with me.

“Poor little Marcus,” Nina coos, rubbing my shoulders as I sit down to eat, “you look exhausted. I’ll run a nice bath for you tonight.”

I sigh happily and relax, enjoying my meal. Araña sits across from me and eagerly engulfs her meal with an alarming voracity.

“Our little male is doing well for his first day.” Araña tells Nina. “Tomorrow we’ll work on movement, and keep practicing that swing. He’ll be able to protect himself in no time.”

We all share a laugh at that and continue to talk until I finish my meal. Araña, tired from the day’s training and maintaining her human form, retires to her dungeon quarters to continue work on building her web.

“She’s putting a lot of effort into that web.” I point out to Nina while we lay together in our bed. “Do you think she’s considering permanently living here.”

Nina thinks about that for a little while before offering a reply.

“Would you object to her living here permanently?”

Now it’s my turn to think. I am constantly torn between the Araña whom I’ve come to know as of late and the Araña who once tried to eat me. So far she’s been nice, I can’t see any reason to doubt her words, and Nina seems to be okay with sharing my body. I have to admit, lying with Araña in her human form does sound like a lot of fun.

“Our love is never going away,” Nina answered, resting her head on my chest, “no matter who I share you with, we’ll always love each other.”

She’s right. I may be far from my home, unable to return again, but I have her and for that I am quite happy. And now, it seems I have Araña too. Content and comfortable, I fall asleep with Nina in my arms.

* * *

“Marcus, are you sure?” Nina asks, nervously clinging to me. “I know she won’t hurt you permanently, but this could still be very painful and scary for you.”

“Oh it will be.” Araña adds. “That’s the motivation.”

“I have to try.” I say with wavering resolve, holding tight to a wooden training sword. “I need real motivation, and here it is.”

“I’ll take that as consent.” Araña, in her half-spider form, says happily.

“Okay… just be safe.” Nina relents.

I’ve spent several long weeks relentlessly practicing with my real sword and a wooden training sword. I’ve gotten significantly stronger and developed decent form. But Araña asserted today that, without real motivation, I’ll never tap my full potential or see how I react to fear. To that end, she proposed the deal we now act upon: we fight, me with my wooden blade. If she surrenders, I win. But if I surrender, she will act as any monster girl would and drag me off to her lair for some likely unpleasant mating. Her torment will last only one night, and she cannot do any permanent damage. I’m scared, but also motivated.

“Now,” Araña advises as she stands across from me in the yard, “now I’ll be introducing a new combat variable, one of which us monster girls are fond. Pleasure attacks. Be ready.”

I gulp nervously, fidgeting awkwardly but maintaining my stance. I won’t lose to the spider-woman. I’ll be happy to mate with her to help sustain her need for male life force, but if she gets a hold of me today, she’ll be sure to teach me that losing to a monster girl isn’t fun.

“Begin.” she snaps sharply.

Even with her lower body in its spider form she is quick, darting in and playfully brushing her right hand up my thigh. The seemingly benign motion makes me quiver for a moment, shuddering in ecstasy. Startled by this new variable in our combat, I strike at her arm with my blade. Araña bounds out of reach easily; I’ll need to be more aggressive. I step in fast and Araña is ready, having hoped I’d do just that.

“Come here, boy.” she hisses, pulling me against her and pressing her soft lips against my mouth.

She must have emitted a bit of her venom, because the brief kiss leaves me shaken. Not just aroused, but actually a bit dizzy, such that when she shoves me away from her I topple onto my back, allowing Araña to loom over me. She’s laughing scornfully, eager to claim her prize. But I won’t lose so easily. Drawing on my remaining strength and mental clarity, I sit up sharply and drive my sword’s wooden point into her stomach.

Araña bolts backward in surprise and I spring to my feet, pressing the attack with a swiftly arcing swipe. Araña ducks the swing and lunges under my blade at me, catching my sword’s wooden pommel on the top of her head. She lets out an irritated growl and makes a grab for me. I’ve angered her. One of her hands catches the front of my shirt and she pulls me in close to her face.

“Fine, we’ll play rough.” she snarls ferociously, before snapping her fangs violently at my face.

I pull away sharply, quick-stepping to regain my balance and giving my blade a sharp thrust forward to check the arachnitaur’s advance. She makes to bat my blade aside, but I move with it, side stepping around her and coming alongside her. Seizing my opportunity, I jump astride her spider body, landing such that I’m behind her torso. I’m about to bring my sword to her throat when one of her arachnid forelegs lashes upward and catches my sword-arm, jerking me violently off her back and throwing me to the ground.

“No one rides me.” she barks, now looming over me again.

This time she leans her torso down over me such that our faces are almost touching, before lowering her arachnid lower-body over me, pressing me into the ground with her weight. My sword is trapped, useless, and soon the rest of me is useless when her lips find mine and she forces another disorienting, debilitating kiss upon me. My mind goes foggy, clouded by lust and total confusion. I feel Araña lifting me, feel my hands and ankles being bound by her strong silken thread. Effortlessly she carries me toward the house.

“No permanent damage!” Nina pleads.

“Don’t worry,” Araña soothes, “I’m just going to teach him a little lesson about losing. He’ll still be whole when I’m done.”

By the time her disorienting, aphrodisiac venom has worn off, Araña has me down in her dungeon abode. I have yet to see her web, though I knew she’d been working on it. I am amazed at the massive structure which spans the back wall and much of the immediately adjacent walls, floor, and ceiling. The web is intricately woven and looks like a dome extending radially outward from a central point on the far wall. I begin to struggle in my captress’ arms, but this just seems to excite her. She clutches me tight while selecting a prime place for me in her web.

Araña easily tears my clothes off of me and places me in her web, letting the silk adhere to my skin and immobilize me on the quivering strands. I struggle in the web, but it is totally useless; I am hopelessly trapped until Araña chooses to free me. The hungry gleam in her eyes suggests my freedom won’t be for the rest of the night, and she will drag out this night as long as she can.

“And now you’ll pay for it.” she cuts in, brandishing a short strand of her silk. “Now scream for your mistress.”

She draws back her right arm and brings it forward sharply, her wrist flicking forward and sending the thin silk strand cracking through the air and colliding with my chest. I scream from the surprisingly painful bite of the silken whip, and Araña’s only just begun. The whip cracks again and again, seemingly without end, striking my chest, stomach, thighs, and genitals with a merciless precision that leaves me weeping and trembling in absolute agony and terror.

“I’m sorry I lost!” I scream when Araña finally pauses to catch her breath after the exertions of whipping me for so long. “Please! I’m sorry!”

“You will be.” she pants venomously.

Quick as a snake striking, she lunges forth and sinks her fangs into my right inner thigh. I screech in pain, feeling venom course into my body. But a different variety of venom. Apparently Araña has many. This one simply spreads pain like prickling needles all over my body, particularly where my flesh is in contact with other objects, such as the web.

“This is one of my favorite venoms to use,” Araña explains, “it stimulates all nerve endings to receive pain on contact with anything. Now, how about I help you relax with a nice massage.”

“A massage, but why would… oh Gods no.” I groan in realization.

Araña begins to massage every inch of my body with firm pressure from her soft, cool hands. Ordinarily it would have felt amazing, but with this toxin in my system, it feels as if she’s wearing gloves studded with needles. I scream until I almost pass out from lack of breath, and then lay gasping in misery until Araña finishes up and steps back to appraise me. As I watch her, my vision blurred with tears, she transforms before my eyes, her arachnid lower-body fading in a burst of shadow, to be replaced by her human lower body. Her legs are long, shapely, and light-skinned. Beautiful. Araña strips down, sliding out of the impossibly tight, black leather garb of which she is so fond.

“Just a bit more venom.” she tells me while crawling over me in the web and laying upon me. “This is the best one.”

“Araña, I’m still feeling the other venom a little.” I stammer weakly. “Everything still hurts, sort of.”

“Good.” she laughs wickedly, before biting down on my collarbone.

“Ah!” I cry out.

A strange warmth radiates from the new bite, even when Araña pulls away from the spot. The warm sensation flows down, making me shiver as it reaches my lower extremities. My manhood stiffens instantaneously, going rigid as an iron pole.

“Pure aphrodisiac.” she clarifies as her thighs encircle my waste. “Now you’ll last me all night, whether you want to or not.”

I don’t have a chance to reply. Simultaneously, Araña smothers my lips in a passionate kiss and lowers her hip down to impale herself on my erect member. I let out an exclamation into Araña’s mouth while her tongue greedily probes within my mouth. Every sensation is a mix of pleasure and prickling pain left over from that awful pain toxin. Her hips rock against mine in a ceaseless rhythm, her tight inner walls squeezing me, stimulating every nerve ending in my shaft. I groan into her mouth and she reciprocates the gesture, clearly loving my agonized pleasure.

With the stimulation of her hot mouth covering mine, her ample breasts pressing against my chest, and her tight inner depths rubbing vigorously at my shaft, my first orgasm comes quickly. She holds my gaze as I climax in her. I see lust, hunger, and excitement in her fiery red eyes. She isn’t even close to done yet. I am in for a long and exhausting night…

Once she has finished with me, after so long I’ve since lost track of time, Araña slides off me. My hips ache from the constant pressure of her rhythmic gyrations. My mouth tastes only of her saliva, which is strangely sweet, presumably from residual venom of some sort. My body feels thoroughly defiled and broken. Araña easily lifts me up from my current position in the web and carries me higher up, winding me in several strands of silk until I am cocooned from head to toe, suspended well above the ground. Only my manhood and testicles are exempt from the cocooning.

“A late-night snack.” I hear Araña say, before I feel her hot breath against my testicles.

Her fangs scrape my most sensitive regions and I feebly scream from within my web cocoon. Her mouth surrounds my testicles, her tongue lapping at them, her fangs just lightly poking at them, always threatening to bite down. I whimper pathetically, totally immobile in my bindings. In time, Araña tires of this amusement and leaves me to fall asleep in my suspended prison.

* * *

When I wake, much of my pain is gone. I’m certainly still sore, and my mouth still tastes like Araña (not that I object much to that), but I’m surprisingly not stricken with agony after my torturous night. I lay in my usual bed, wrapped in a soft sheet. Nina sits by my side, and squeals with glee when she sees I’m awake.

“Araña was so careful not to do too much,” she exclaims, “but I still worry.”

“I’d hate to see her idea of too much.” I chuckle while Nina wraps her arms around me and nuzzles my neck exuberantly. “Is uh… is Araña mad at me now?”

“Why would I be mad?”

I turn to the sound of the voice to see Araña in full human form, clad in her black leather and seated by my other side on the bed. She, like Nina, lays down beside me and moves close to me, affectionately.

“A long night of torture and rape can often cause a victim to assume the aggressor is angry.” I quip, a hint of bitterness in my voice.

“You agreed to it.” she reminds me.

Damn. Looks like I can’t make her feel bad for that miserable night. The sex was good, though prolonged to the point of brutality, but other than that it was a complete Hell. I’m about to say something sarcastically back when Araña cups my face in her hands and kisses me tenderly. Not forcefully and invasive like usual, but just a simple, loving gesture.

“I wanted you so much,” she admits, “I was never going to let you win that sparring match. It was unfair of me to fight so hard, and to do all of that to you. I just… I needed that so much, Marcus. I humbly apologize, please forgive me. You fought so amazingly well.”

I am, for a time, speechless at her outpouring of kindness. Araña is such a confusing being, I don’t know what to make of her.

“It’s okay,” I say at last, “I’d have slept with you if you had just asked, but if all of that was what you needed, then it’s okay. You’re a friend, I’m happy to help however I can.”

“You realize he’s the best, right?” Araña says to Nina.

“He sure is.” Nina agrees.

The two women cuddle close to me and I feel genuinely content, as if I’d not endured a night of torment. I lay tangled amidst my two lovers, sighing in relaxation. My life is truly an interesting one amongst these monster girls.

“I feel I should tell you,” Araña speaks up after a while, “I was so… vigorous because I am currently in heat. It is likely you have impregnated me.”

“What?!” I exclaim.

Araña explains. Arachnitaurs, like any other creatures, go into heat every once in a while, and the seed of their male mates (or male captives as the case often is) serves to fertilize their eggs, which the arachnitaur lays either in clustered egg sacks, or in the body of an unlucky victim. This means I will technically be a father, though arachnitaurs and their newborns will often feast on the male who helped conceive the offspring, so fatherhood is a foreign concept to Araña.

“Are you okay with this?” I ask Nina.

“I can’t get pregnant,” she answers bluntly, “so why not, right?”

“A good point.” I must admit.

“I’ll retire to my web shortly.” Araña explains. “I’ll be secluded for a while, preparing and protecting my eggs. I’ll get very territorial, so please don’t disturb me or I may accidentally hurt you.”

With that, she gives me a kiss and, to my surprise, bestows one on Nina as well. The android girl blushes and giggles at that, and we bid Araña farewell for a while. She leaves the room and soon we hear the slam of the dungeon door. My children are being conceived. My peculiar, half-spider, half-woman children. My life is odd.

“What was that about?” I ask Nina, referring to Araña’s show of affection toward her.

The android girl blushes and laughs, hiding her face for a moment before speaking up.

“While we waited for you to wake up, I commented that her lips look soft and that she is pretty. She uh… well… she kissed me and we… well let’s just say that now all three of us are sharing each other.”

“I have few words to describe how hot that is.” I bluntly confess, and we share a laugh at that.

* * *

The next day I wake up late, feeling pretty good. I’m not sure what Nina or Araña did after my torture, but I’ve recovered at an amazing pace. I find myself alone in bed and so I slip into my pants, shirt, and shoes and venture down to the kitchen to look for Nina. To my surprise, she’s neither in the kitchen nor in the back garden, at least as far as I can tell from the kitchen’s rear window. Then I hear the crash: the sound of metal caving inward and snapping, a sound coming from the direction of our front gate.

I don’t have time to grab my sword, I have to see if Nina is hurt. Faster than I’ve ever moved before, I bolt out the front door and down the path to the gate. Sure enough, the entire construct has been smashed in by a heavy log held by several female figures. They’re a few inches taller than a tall human, with green tinted skin, powerful musculature, and very small tusks curling up from between their lips.

“Orcs!” Nina shrieks in terror as she runs toward me. “Get inside.”

I turn around to run, but neither of us are quick enough. These creatures, orcs it seems they’re called, overtake us in mere moments. Their speed and strength is astonishing, yet they are strangely pretty in a savage, war-like sort of way. Nina and I struggle in the firm grasp of these barbaric females, but our efforts do us no good.

“Tie them up.” orders one of the orcs. “Put them in the wagon.”

“Can we use the male?” asks the orc currently twisting my arms behind my back.

“Later.” replies the other orc. “Tie them up for now.”

Rough, painful ropes are wound around our ankles and wrists and the orcs drag us toward one of several wagons I see just beyond our devastated front gate. We are each lifted and thrown unceremoniously into the back of the last wagon, which is already occupied by a terrified-looking human female who is also bound.

“We’ll have fun with you, boy.” mocks one of the orc women before leaving us alone.

Nina scoots close to me, whimpering with fear and huddling against me.

“Can you break free?” I ask her.

“Probably,” she replies, “but even if I can, they’ll just catch us again and punish us. Why do you think they attacked us? Orcs, like other monsters, will take human men as mates, often unwillingly on the part of the men, but this seems more like a raid.”

At this point, the female human who is also bound and lying in this wagon speaks up, just as the wagon starts to trundle away from our abode. She is of moderate height, with brown hair and pretty blue eyes. She struggles to sit up before addressing us.